I was so thrilled to get an email from Andika Pradana about his coverage of a presstalk and presentation with the famous James Turrell. I’m so proud of you, Andika!
(I went to KTH in Sweden with Andika, he’s quite an amazing photographer and lighting artist!)

Do you know of James Turrell’s work? Well, James Turrell is a MASTER of light and space – he’s an American artist, and his works are quite stunning:

“The Light Inside”

“The Space that Sees”

“Heavy Water”

You really need to do a little bit more looking into these pieces, they are STUNNING. The one above, entitled “Heavy Water,” is a large swimming pool installation with a tower buried in the pool. Swimmers can dive under the tower that resides in the water to look up and see the sky, surrounded by all of the blue water. Awesome.

Check out Andika’s coverage of the press event with this American Master of light. AWESOME coverage, Andika! I am so proud of you!

Are you familiar with Dallas area light artist Jay Shinn? Jay is a light artist – his medium is light. He is amazing at communicating within his chosen medium – which is a mix of light, paint, projections, sometimes geometry on several dimensions, and his work evokes a kind of transcendental peace when you view it; you can get lost in Jay’s work for a long time. It’s hard to really nail down a style to Jay Shinn’s work, although it can be spread across the fields of several artists using paint and light. To me, Jay Shinn’s work evokes feelings of a modern-day Dan Flavin, depth and focus like the work of Josef Albers, geometry that evokes Fritz Glarner‘s work, with the subtlety of Kazimir Malevich.

Whew!

I’m going to be interviewing Jay soon, so look for the interview to hit JimOnLight.com soon!

I had the pleasure of attending this opening with Rick and Adri Hutton of InLight Gobos, who have been doing gobo work for Jay for a while now. Such a fun time had by all!

Check out some of Jay’s work from that night, and click on one of the thumbnails below for a gallery view of the entire set of photos!

I ran across this very cool art installation while looking up info about the Kinetica Artfair in London – an artist named Dianne Harris had some pretty incredible fluorescent sculpture to see and appreciate.

Listen, you have to check out Dianne’s website – I kinda want to buy this woman a drink!

Fire with Fire has been commissioned by
The Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad.
Curator : Marlene Madison.

The Downtown Eastside is the oldest neighbourhood in Vancouver; it is also the most run-down. This historic area is infamous for being plagued by social problems due to poverty. Before falling prey to serious urban decay, it has known brighter days, and was even the city’s business hub until the 1980s. Derelict for over twenty years, in more recent ones, it has started to be sought after again. The Downtown Eastside is undergoing a major mutation —witness the newly renovated buildings and the constructions sites that now dot the area.

The coming of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games is accelerating the Downtown Eastside’s transformation by heightening real estate speculation and gentrification; new condo towers and big box stores are appearing. The revamping of the neighbourhood seems more responsive to the expectations of people who are better-off. Tensions between real estate developers and members of the community are palpable, with fears of a form of implicit “social cleansing”.

It is striking that the history of the Downtown Eastside began in destruction and disappearance. In 1886, soon after the city was incorporated, the Great Vancouver Fire swept down on the neighbourhood and razed almost all of it to the ground. The video installation Fire with Fire recalls this troubled period of Vancouver’s history. It also alludes to the neighbourhood’s present conditions by reminding us that many lives have been consumed there, worn down by years of homelessness, drug use, street prostitution, and violence.

Living in a condo tower downtown has its privvies, I guess. I’m not really much of a downtown dweller, at least lately, but I seem to leave home and return home these days when the sun is still a snooze slap away from waking up.

I certainly take a lot of pictures of the downtown nightscape – my apartment is right next to the Oklahoma City Murrah Building Memorial, and it faces the downtown skyline. Parts of Oklahoma City are bustling with holiday-themed lighting, and I’m planning a series of photos of the city at night.

Here’s the first installment of architectural lighting from Oklahoma City, OK – this set from the 13th floor of my tower – for reference, here’s the city skyline in August:

…and here’s a detail of the Chase Bank building (and I don’t know the tower to the right yet):

Wider city shot – It’s true – apparently crosses cover the idea of “Holiday” in general here in Oklahoma…

Here’s looking the other way at Oklahoma City, looking southwest:

More shots – click on any one in this gallery, and a Gallery View will open up for your enjoyment!

I just finished a light art installation for the World Creative Forum that is taking place here in Oklahoma City this week – pictures and video to follow soon. The installation, entitled “Synapse,” is a 250-foot dynamic art piece – the idea behind it was to create a lighting installation reminiscent of being woken from a dream. I cannot wait to get these videos and images processed so I can post them!

Sorry for the few days of no posts, I’ve been climbing out of a mound of work the size of a theatre. But now, as they say, I am back in the saddle again!

I woke up this morning before the sun’s alarm went off, and the lights of the city were still gleaming beautifully. It put me in such an amazing mood. I hope that I can pass some of this great mood onto you all this morning!

Here’s a start – check out this clock tower, smack in the center of Prague, that just celebrated its 600th birthday. Mapping company Macula mapped the clock with animations, while sound company Data-Live created the soundscape. Tomato Production handled all of the site’s production needs. Prepare to get rocked.

I got this Facebooked from my good old friend Mikey Husman out of Columbus, OH. Mike and I have done tons of shows together, and Mike also works for a company called Alcatel-Lucent, who produced this ridiculously cool 3D video/shape projection installation. Check it out:

From Mikey:

Mobile World Congress is over for a few months now, but we have a video so spectacular to share that we thought it was time to bring the topic back! The video below is called “ENVISION : Step into the sensory box”. It illustrates the immersive experience Alcatel-Lucent was offering to its customers during last Mobile World Congress. This visual show was based on a video mapping created by the Superbien agency together with the New Media division from Auditoire Event Agency. Customers were invited to enter into a 3m x 3m square room and discover an artistic translation of Alcatel-Lucent’s MWC 2010 tagline: “Transforming the mobile experience.”

Seems like half my city (that’s San Francisco, y’all) has been away at Burning Man for the past week. I don’t do the playa thing, myself, but there has been some pretty fun light art that’s happened out there over the years. Here’s a video from 2009 of some of the light art (and explosions! my favorite!).